Return from Egypt

And so the journey into Egypt has ended. I am slightly delirious from the jet lag and have been up since 3am.

Some last thoughts:

It was a great trip and it was really amazing to see the pyramids and tombs in person, up close. However, I don't think I would return to Egypt if given the choice. Egypt is a one-time thing.

Also, Americans have a bad reputation as tourists, but during this trip I noticed they were the most polite and respectful of them all. And as poorly dressed as they normally are, at least they were not wearing this (trust me, it looked much worse in person--and yes, that is a man wearing denim short-shorts):





















And speaking of clothing, I'm so over wearing variations of khaki.

One Step, Two Step...

We had a day to ourselves to wander around Cairo, so we went to see the Nilometer, which they used to measure the depth of the Nile and predict how good the crops would be (and thus the amount of taxes that would have to be paid), and back to Old (Coptic) Cairo to look around and do a little shopping. We decided to take the subway back to the hotel--it couldn't be that difficult, right? There are only two subway lines in the city, and it was pretty easy to use (no doubt it simplified matters that we were only going 2 stops.) We ended up on the women-only car, which was much less crowded than the co-ed ones. The real challenge was when we got out of the subway--crossing the street was seriously like playing a game of chicken with the cars. I don't think being a pedestrian in any other city has been scarier. But we put on our game faces and made it safely back to the hotel.

On our last day in Egypt, we took a visit to the first real pyramid at Saqqara: the Step Pyramid of Zoser. This is the one that started it all.

We also stopped by the ancient city of Memphis, which at one point was the capitol of the kingdom. It was considered a sophisticated city, but unfortunately, there is very little left except an open garden with some statues that have been found in the region.

The day's highlight was stopping by a local sandwich joint and having some falafel and shwarma. I think it may have been the best meal we had in Egypt and it cost just a fraction of the price--lunch for four of us was only $10!

Fresh Off the Boat

There is something about a big, crowded city that just makes me so happy. We are finally off the boat and back in Cairo. It's a dirty, overwhelming place (camels were running down the street tonight and I swear we came close to hitting another car/person/animal every 5 minutes on the road) but it is much more comforting to me than a cruise ship. Cairo reminds me of Taipei when I was a kid--before it became rich and modernized, before the Japanese department stores (I heart Takashimaya), and before there was an American fast food joint every block (not that I wasn't a grateful 9 year old ex-pat when that first McDonald's opened...) Of course, they have their fast food here too--our guide joked that KFC here is Kentucky Fried Camel.

Today was Day 7 of the trip and we have finally seen the pyramids at Giza! I'm a pretty jaded traveler, but I was still impressed. It's strange that the only remaining of the Seven Wonders of the World is stuck smack in the middle of a crowded suburb. The pyramids are massive and the Sphinx is smaller (and in much worse shape) than expected. The best part of Giza was climbing down one of the smaller tombs through a very narrow, steep shaft, into the small burial chamber. Unlike the tombs in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, there were no paintings or carvings inside--just plain ol' unadorned stone.


We also visited Old Cairo where we went to Ben Ezra Synagogue, the oldest in Egypt, the Hanging Church (Coptic), and the Church of St. Sergus, where it is said to be built over a cave that Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus were sheltered after fleeing to Egypt. By the way, Coptic Christians follow the Orthodox calendar, so they celebrate Christmas on my birthday, not on December 25th. We stopped by Islamic Cairo to the famous Khan Al-Khalili market and had some refreshment at Fishawi's Coffeehouse.















The afternoon was spent in the Egyptian Museum, which houses over 120,000 relics and many of them not organized very well. I focused my remaining energy on the booty from King Tut's tomb and the mummies. Ah, mummies. I paid a cool US$20 to go see the husks of a dozen dead kings. I particularly liked the information card on Queen Hatshepsut (who you'll remember from previous posts dressed like a man and ruled Egypt for many years): Now known to be Hatshepsut, great female pharoah of the 18th Dynasty, this mummy is of an obese female with bad teeth who died between the ages of 45 and 60. Ouch.


Crocodile mummy. The largest one at the Egyptian museum must have been around 10-12 feet long.

Into the Valley of the Kings

Last post of the day. Sorry no photos yet, since the internet cafe I am in is uber-sketchy and I think the computer I am using is from 1989. There is a large hole where the USB port should be. But hell, what can I expect for $1/hour of internet, right?

Today we went into the Valley of the Kings. It was amazing and I was really impressed. This is the burial ground for all of the New Kingdom pharoahs. So far 62 tombs have been excavated, the most famous of which is King Tutankhamun's. He wasn't actually a great king and only ruled briefly, with no great battles or buildings during his reign. He just happened to be buried with a whole lot of crap in his tiny tomb and the Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered it (after many, many years and sheer luck at a last ditch effort after his funding got pulled) in November 1922. I actually didn't go into Tut's tomb, nor did I see his recently revealed mummified face. I did see a few other tombs of greater kings and they were beautiful and well preserved. Everything inside of Tut's tomb is now in the Egyptian museum in Cairo (where I will be visiting in 2 days).





















Afterwards we went to the Temple of Hatshepsut, which is cut out of the limestone cliffs so that it is partly rock-cut and partly free standing. Hatshepsut was a woman, but dressed as a man (fake beard and all) to rule as a pharoah for 15 years. I need to do a little more research on the logistics on that (did the people know she was cross-dressing or did they actually think she was a man?) and I'll get back to you.




















Back to Cairo (and slightly chillier temperatures) tomorrow.

Cruisin' Down the Nile

Our "luxury" cruise ship is called the M/S Mojito. Apparently the owner is a big fan of the drink (as am I), although I don't think they even serve mojitos on this ship. Sigh.

We've made our way down the Nile and visited quite a few temples the past few days. Unfortunately, they all start to blur together and look the same. I've had the same experience with chateaus in France and cathedrals in Britain. Except now I'm older and have even less brain capacity.

We are now in Luxor, renamed several times (including Thebes by the Greeks.) The Arabs conquered, saw all of the temples in the city but thought they were old palaces, and thus named the area Al-Uqsur ("The Palaces".)





















It is also the hassle capital of Egypt. Souvenir vendors are everywhere and will follow you for blocks. I've seen them throw shirts onto people in the hopes that they will buy them. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. This doesn't stress me out that much though--the gypsy children of Istanbul are much, much scarier. Plus, I'm from New York--I know how to pointedly ignore people and look unfriendly. However, there are a few other things that cause me great stress in Egypt: the first is hoarding enough clean drinking water (I think I'm always thirsty because I know I can't drink from the tap), the second is having enough small bills to tip. There is a huge unemployment rate here in Egypt and people depend on tips for income. You have to tip for everything, including using public restrooms (god forbid you actually want toilet paper.) I'm totally fine with the tipping, I understand people need to make a living, it's just a matter of my having the small bills for it. Nothing makes me happier here than buying a large bottle of water and getting a bunch LE5 bills (=$1) back in change. No lie.

On a side note, I'm sorry to report that the seafood buffet on the cruise ship did not sit well with Mom. She had a bad bout of food poisoning yesterday. She's better today and managed to endure both the Valley of the Kings (awesome!) and the Temple of Hatshepsut.

My Name is (Fel)luca

We are currently further up (south) the Nile. After that horrid 2:30AM wake-up call we flew down to Abu Simbel to see the temple of Ramses II and Hathor, dedicated to Ramses II's favorite wife (of 5), Queen Nefertari. Afterwards we flew into Aswan, the southern most Egyptian city, maybe about 200km north of Sudan.















Some sites in Aswan:

Aswan High Dam--the old Aswan Dam couldn't control the flooding (although it initially contributed immensely to make the land cultivable). The High Dam is huge, containing 18 times the amount of material used to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. There were a lot of international politics involved in the building of the High Dam, which I won't get into, but the Soviet Union ended up funding it. The water that has been dammed up is now the largest artificial lake in the world (Lake Nassar), over 500km in length. No one swims in this lake--probably due to a combination of gianormous crocodiles and bad, bad disease causing microbes in the water.















We ended our visit in Aswan with a felucca (traditional canvas sail boat) ride on the Nile to nowhere. It was quite pleasant cruising around for an hour.


I should also mention that we picked up two travel companions for this part of our trip: Frank and Jeanette, an octogenarian couple from Florida by way of NJ. They are quite nice, but nowhere near spry. AT ALL.

Flight into Egypt

After an uneventful 10 hour plane ride, we arrived in Cairo. Looking out the airplane window, I'm not sure what I was expecting (okay, so maybe I was hoping I'd see the Pyramids at Giza on my right, and the Nile on my left), but everything here is sand colored. Everything. We were met at the airport by our guide, Hashem. He speaks very low and fast, with a rather heavy accent--I've had to ask him to repeat himself several times. At least I know that, in theory, I should be able to understand everything he's saying, rather than those Taiwanese tours I've been on when it's about a 40% comprehension rate and most of it is context.

Cairo has a population of about 20 million and the traffic reflects that. It is more insane than New York or Taipei and more along the lines of Istanbul. Basically, frightening.

Wake-up call at 2:30AM. We have a 5:30AM flight down south to see the Temple of Ramses II and Nefertari in Abu Simbel, then another flight further up the Nile to Aswan. We'll stay one night in the Old Cataract Hotel, where Agatha Christie wrote Death on the Nile, then we'll be on a Nile cruise for 4 days. I probably won't post until we arrive back in Cairo.
















Dysentery report: so far, so good.

Let the Camel Races Begin!

And so, I'm off to Egypt! It will be my first time in Africa and I can finally put those Egyptian art history classes to use.






















Gippy Tummy

On a side note, I've been a little concerned about dysentery (a/k/a "gippy tummy" or "King Tut's Revenge") in Egypt since folks I know who have traveled there have gotten sick, and from past travel experience it appears that I am more of a fragile flower than I'd like to admit. I asked my mom to get some antibiotics from an uncle in Taiwan. I suggested Cipro--if it's good enough for anthrax it should be good enough for whatever is hurting my stomach, right? She comes back with this bottle of pills:

A wee bit sketchy, if you ask me, but I'm still going to take them along even if there isn't any dosage information or instructions on how to take them. And according to the Ofloxacin website, this will help if I pick up any bacterial skin infections, the clap or pneumonia, yet no mention about enteric infections. Hmmm...

Whoa, Philly!

I am quite fond of Philadelphia, city of Brotherly Love. I recently went there with the usual suspects and we had a very simple agenda:





1. Lunch at Reading Terminal Market and getting some fudge from my favorite chocolate shop--I bought 2lbs of the yummy goodness.
2. Seeing the Liberty Bell and not getting angry about not being able to touch it anymore (Christina has some wells of bitterness towards Philly and the Liberty Bell because she remembers when you were allowed to put your grubby fingers on it.
3. Dairy Queen--because as great as New York is, there aren't any Dairy Queens. Sometimes you just want a Butterfinger Blizzard.
4. Shopping. Because, well, we like to shop.













We also went to Eastern State Penitentiary:


















Located just a few blocks away from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the prison was opened in 1928 and considered to be the world's first true penitentiary. I have to admit, the place was cold and dank, and the lighting left much to be desired. I guess this created "atmosphere"? The most interesting thing I learned from the place was that it the birthplace of a new system of incarceration, referred to as the Pennsylvania System, and utilized solitary confinement as a form of rehabilitation. This is in contrast to the New York System which had prisoners work together in silence. Sing Sing prison upstate is an example of this system. I am glad that I learned this from the museum and not firsthand experience.



Tidbits: The movie Twelve Monkeys used ESP as the setting for the mental hospital

















Al Capone spent some time here (in quite a luxe room, actually). They said he would spend brief periods in prison to avoid mob trouble.
















There was also a feral cat population that took over the penitentiary after it closed in the '70s. Over time they fixed all of the cats, so eventually the population died out. There are these slightly creepy white ceramic sculptures of cats placed all around the place to represent them.

Summer off-season

Crikey, it's sad to see that I haven't posted since April. Which means that I haven't traveled in the last 6 months. Sad, indeed.

Well, I guess it's not entirely true. I had a few mini-trips over the summer:

1. Rhode Island
Dirty and I went to visit Sonya, as she had finished up her first year at RISD. We took the train up there and had to listen to two people who had just met and were flirting the whole time. But then the conversation took a turn and all I heard was the guy say to the girl something along the lines of "Well, she had been dating women when we met. You know how it is."

Right.

We attempted (and failed) to see a movie at TWO separate drive-in theaters. Then we hit the beach at Newport. It's a very cute and touristy New England town. We walked the famous Cliff Walk and the three miles or so took us much longer than if we had been walking in the city instead of clambering around beach and rocks. The mansions along the walk were huge and beautiful and at the end of the walk we were very far away from our car, without snacks and water (poor planning on our part), and very, very tired. There was definitely meltdown potential but we each held it together and managed to find the trolley to take us back to civilization and more importantly, food.






























































2. July 4th BBQ/camp-out
Went out to Reading, PA to sleep in a tent, eat lots of grilled meat, read cheesy magazines and sun myself by the pool for 3 days with my best friends. Lovely. (Sorry, no photodocumentation available, even though there were at least 5 photographers present.)

3. MN
Brought Christina and Vickie to the home state for a visit. I think this might have been the first time I brought tourists to the Twin Cities. Very strange showing people around. Here's the rundown of what happened:

-Mall of America. Including the indoor amusement park formerly known as Camp Snoopy


















-I started to learn how to ride a bike (kind of):

-visited on of the 10,000 lakes (Nokomis), chosen over the opportunity to stalk the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

And Now We're Back Stateside!

My last few days in Taiwan were been spent in my mom's hometown, Lo-Tung. It's about 1.5 hours south of Taipei. It used to be a much smaller, provincial town, but it's been booming the past 20 years. My mom was born and raised here and my grandparents' house/clinic has been torn down since they passed away and is now a shopping arcade (somehow this seems fitting). According to my mom, the town is the #1 consumer city in Taiwan. Apparently, this shopping sickness of mine is genetic also.

There is still a lot of small-town flavor here though. There's no need for a car--everything you need is walking distance. My mom is a regular at the fruit stand next door, the little eatery across the street (it's faster and cheaper to go there to buy rice than make your own) and the beauty salon two doors down. They notice when my mom is coming and going, or if she has a suitcase with her, orout strolling with grandkids they've never seen before. It's nice, but on the other hand, if we buy fruit from a different vendor we have to hide it as we walk by, and sometimes we go the other way around so no one sees us.

It was the Tomb Sweeping holiday on April 5th, a federal holiday and long weekend for most people so the town was bustling! Tomb Sweeping is a holiday to honor and remember your ancestors, clean their tombs (obviously), make offerings, etc.

We did two touristy things: went to this National Traditional Arts Center and the beach. The arts center was huge, kind of like a folk arts village. They had really nice lawns for people to run around or picnic, a river for boat rides, a cute shopping "avenue", a bamboo arts exhibition and a bamboo maze.

We also went to the beach. This beach was nothing like the Thai beaches we visited. No clear, blue water, no fine white sand. There are extremely strong--and dangerous--undertows and a small temple was erected right on the beach by the Taiwanese government after several children had drowned and the people petitioned for the temple. There hasn't been a drowning since.

And so, after a rather uneventful flight back (15 hours total--bless that tailwind), a chat or two with U.S. Customs agents in Seattle (they love to talk to me, but luckily they never ask to inspect my luggage), the slowest plane ride EVER to Newark (those 5 hours seriously felt longer than the 10 hours from Taipei to Seattle), an hour-long wait for our luggage, and then a mishap with the car service, we made it safely home. Thankfully my apartment building was still intact when I pulled up. Whew.

I am very happy to be home.

Travel Fabrications

A dear old friend of mine once told me about how he lied when he was on airplanes and people asked him what he did. He would tell them that he was a successful lawyer or businessman. I asked him why he did that, and he said that it was better than the truth: that he was an unemployed 30-something chain-smoking alcoholic who lived at home with his parents. Nice old ladies--and attractive women--don't like to hear that. (Note: he doesn't live at home anymore.)

My mom does a similar thing. She's not a pathological liar or anything, but she doesn't like strangers knowing too much. "They'll ask questions otherwise, " she says. Um, if you fabricate too much, won't they still ask questions?

So in Thailand we were on this tour with three other people: the Lins, a middle-aged couple, and Mrs. Chen who was traveling alone. Mrs. Lin liked to talk. A LOT. She is one of those people who seems not to get out enough. She will interrupt conversations and just talk louder to get peoples' attention. This is rather annoying when you are driving around an island in a passenger van. There's nowhere to hide and I can only listen to my headphones so loud.

I should mention here that Taiwanese people are very friendly and chatty. More so than your average Midwesterner, actually. We were at a restaurant and my aunt burnt herself on the tea pot because she's having problems with a tendon in her hand and the waitress comes over and talks for about 10 minutes about how she had the same problem and she had surgery and it was much better. This is one of the less personal conversations with random people that occurred.

Anyways, mom didn't want our travel companions to "know too much" so she would fib and withhold information. Thus, the basic story was this: My sister and I are Taiwanese born and bred (not true) and she sent us to the U.S. to live with relatives and go to school at a young age(also untrue), which is why we speak English. She mentioned that I understood Taiwanese (true), in the hopes that they would just speak Taiwanese to me, but they took it to mean that it would be better if they spoke Chinese to me. So the whole time they would speak to me in Chinese. Which is fine since I understood enough, but not ideal since I understand it the LEAST of the three languages.

Oh, what a tangled web of lies we weave!

sigh.

Then last night, my sister found herself doing the same exact thing to the scallion pancake cart guy. They were talking (in Taiwanese) about her being from NY and he asked how much a house was there and how much her salary was, etc. She totally lied about it, and almost told him that all four of them worked (her, my brother-in-law AND the two children under the age of 5) but caught herself.

It must be genetic...

on spirit houses

the two most important things to the thai people are the monarchy and religion.

there are posters of the king everywhere! some guy got sent to seven years in prison for defacing a poster of the king-that wasn't even the max sentence. last year marked the 60th year of his reign. he's been through 17 military coups, 20 prime ministers and 15 consitutions.

so onto spirit houses. these are small houses/temples the size of a birdhouse in front of people's houses. they are very ornate and serve as a house for the spirits. by giving them a fancy house they would rather live in than your house, they can't cause trouble. i think this a marvelous idea! not only does it make the spirits happy, you have a nice decorative piece on your lawn!

now i ask, what has your garden gnome done for you lately?

The Last Few Hours in Thailand...

So yesterday we woke up early and hit the morning market. It was your standard fresh food market, but they did have Thai springrolls fresh out of the hot oil and although it was only like 8:30am, I thought I should partake. They were quite good.

The morning was spent shopping. Asian tours have arrangements with certain establishments and I think the tours get a commission from everything purchased. We went to a cashew factory (yum!), a bird's nest "cave", and a store that sold products made from Andaman stingray skin (rather ugly stuff).

Back to the bird's nests: there are very few edible bird nests (unless you like to eat twigs and whatnot). Swallow's nests are made from a sticky substance the female swallow generates in her beak. Yes, it is essentially bird spit. The nests are considered a delicacy in Asia and are rather expensive. My mom and aunts love to eat that stuff. You cook it in liquid and eat it like soup.

More massages! We went to this fancy spa, sauna-ed ourselves, then got oil massages. Very relaxing, and much less painful than the Thai massage. Good times.

Then we went to Wat Chalong. The main religion in Thailand is Theravada Buddhism--it's the school of Buddhism that draws scriptural inspiration from the Pali Canon (or Tipitaka), which is considered the oldest record of teh Buddha's teachings.

Wat (temple) Chalong is Phuket's most important temple and is revered for its healing powers. The prayer hall contains statues of three of the temple's most venerated monks.















And at end the day, we went to FantaSEA, the mulitimillion dollar "cultural theme park" which was voted Best Tourist Attraction in Thailand from 2000 to 2004!!! It was rather gaudy and what I imagine to be a little Vegas-esque. There were no rides, but cheesy performances (fire juggling bartenders!), games, gift shops and LOTS of flashing lights. The main show was a little bit like some sort of Asian circus with acrobats, tigers, elephants, a magic show and even fake rain. At least that is what I gathered--I actually fell asleep while waiting for the show to start (damn narcolepsy) and woke up intermittenly during the show.


So today is our last day and our flight back to Taiwan is this afternoon. I am ready to get my mosquito-bitten self back to a cooler climate. I've been gone a week and it feels like I've been away for much, much longer. I guess that's a good thing?

More Phun in Phuket

Our second full day in Thailand we went "caving". I have to say, it was really cool! We drove to the mainland to Elephant Hill: legend says that this guy came to the region, stayed there, but a herd of wild elephants came and trampled his crops. He was pretty pissed so he grabbed his spear and ran after the herd. He came across one lone elephant, which wasn't one of the wild ones and was actually quite innocent, and he speared it to death, gutted it and ate its innards. Well, they say that the hill is the remains of the elephant. It actually does look like an elephant. (Sorry, I didn't take any pictures!)

Anyways, inside the hill are caves with interesting stalactites (sp?) and such. We took a rubber canoe through the narrow water filled channel, then transferred to bamboo rafts (which weren't necessary, just for tourist fun) and then we trekked through thigh high water to wander around. I did have a moment when I thought the flashlights would go out and some gigantic prehistoric amphibian who was really hungry and angry would pop out and eat us, but it was only for a second. However, there were lots of bats there. Which makes me wonder, since people always say it's good luck if a bird poops on you, does that apply to bat guano too? More likely I will get rabies, right? (DOH people, please confirm that I have nothing to be worried about since I wasn't asleep in a cave with bats.)

After the caving, we went to an "Island Safari", or as I like to call it "Exploit Animals for Tourism!" We rode elephants (here I will confess that I took my sandal off so I could touch the elephant with my foot. It was much softer than I had expected. Very comforting to touch, actually.), watched a poor monkey on a leash toss a few free-throws and shake hands, and then there was the ox-cart ride. FUN!











































Now we are in Phuket City. It is not as touristy here and definitely pretty run down looking. I think we might do some shopping today.

Okay, I'm out of time. Next time I will have to tell you about our fellow tourists and about spirit houses.